‘Top Chef: Wisconsin’ Episode 5 recap: It’s a supper club showdown at Madison's Harvey House

Warning: Spoilers ahead for "Top Chef" Season 21, Episode 5, which aired April 17, 2024.

After last week’s disappointing showing — and a pep talk from host Kristen Kish — the 10 remaining “Top Chef” contestants had a lot to prove this week.

And they’d have a lot to prove to Wisconsinites, too, as this week’s Elimination Challenge was all about one of our state's most timeless traditions: the supper club.

The cheftestants stayed in Madison to salute supper-club standouts like the relish tray, Friday fish fry and Saturday prime rib, and while the concept may have not been familiar to some of the chefs, they loved the full song-and-dance as they dined at The Harvey House, 644 W. Washington Ave., Madison.

The full episode recap is below, but before we raise our brandy old fashioneds, here’s a peek at the Madison-area sites and celebs that showed up this week.

Wisconsin’s spotlight moments from “Top Chef,” Season 21, Episode 5:

What in MKE did we see?: Nothing! The entire episode took place in Madison.

What in Madison did we see?: The Park Hotel, the State Capitol building, downtown Madison, the Dane County Farmers' Market, the rooftop of L’Etoile, Madison’s Whole Foods Market, The Harvey House, UW-Madison's Carson Gulley Center, Kavanaugh’s Esquire Club, the Tornado Club Steak House

Celebrity sightings: Tory Miller, executive chef and co-owner of Madison’s Graze and L’Etoile; Kristine Miller, operations manager and pastry chef of L’Etoile; W. Kamau Bell, comedian, director and activist; Joe and Shaina Papach, co-owners of The Harvey House

Where was the challenge set? The Quickfire Challenge was at the Dane County Farmers' Market; the Elimination Challenge was at The Harvey House.

How did Dan do? He couldn’t have done better. Dan’s upscale take on the classic relish tray wowed the judges, leading to him being the overall winner of this week’s Elimination Challenge — his first-ever win on the show. Go, Dan!

Best Wisconsin-related quote: “I know you guys have been spending a lot of time in Milwaukee, but Madison’s the capital of Wisconsin for a reason,” said chef Tory Miller. “You just shaded Milwaukee!” W. Kamau Bell responded.

The 10 remaining cheftestants were feeling a little shaken up after last week’s rough Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired challenge, but they didn’t have long to sulk.

As they regrouped from their hotel on Madison’s Capitol Square, host Kristen Kish interrupted with a video call, urging the chefs to take a peek out their window.

The Dane County Farmers Market, the largest producer-only farmers market in the nation, was already bustling that Saturday morning (as it does every Saturday from April to November), and for this week’s Quickfire Challenge, the chefs would get to join the fun.

Quickfire Challenge: Dane County Farmers' Market mania

Each chef got $100 to spend on ingredients for the Quickfire Challenge, but there was a catch: they wouldn’t learn the theme of the challenge until after they shopped, when they’d meet on the rooftop of upscale farm-to-table restaurant L’Etoile to learn their fate.

With so little to go on, the chefs made a mad dash (some of them, at least — “I don’t run,” Dan said) to the market, grabbing fresh ingredients that could be versatile (heirloom tomatoes, mushrooms, various peppers) or unconventional (pork brats and jalapeno popcorn for the always-creative Rasika).

They met at L’Etoile, where Kish was joined by the restaurant’s chef/owner, James Beard Award-winner Tory Miller, and comedian/documentarian W. Kamau Bell, who said he’s been watching the show “since the beginning.”

Miller was pumped that the contestants were in his city.

“I know you guys have been spending a lot of time in Milwaukee, but Madison’s the capital of Wisconsin for a reason,” he said.

“You just shaded Milwaukee!” Bell responded with a laugh.

I’m gonna let that one slide, for now. Madison has its own incredible food scene, and Wisconsin’s plenty big enough to support both. (But I've got my eye on you, Miller...)

Kish explained that the Quickfire Challenge would be centered around another Madison culinary icon: chef Carson Gulley, who was the University of Wisconsin-Madison's residence hall chef from the 1920s through the 1950s. From 1953 to 1962, he and his wife hosted a weekly cooking show on WMTV — the first-ever African American couple to host a cooking show.

Chefs chose recipe cards from sauces that appear in Gulley’s 1949 cookbook, "Seasoning Secrets." They’d use the ingredients they blindly purchased from the farmers market to personalize those sauces, which varied from classics like tartar sauce (“the state condiment,” joked Miller, which coincidentally went to Dan) to unique recipes like raisin sauce, whose sweet-sour flavor threw Michelle for a loop (“Why is this a recipe?” she asked).

After the dishes were tasted, Michelle, Amanda and Kévin were in the bottom three, while Charly, Laura and Manny made the top three dishes.

The $7,500 prize went to Charly, who serendipitously drew a Creole sauce recipe that he used to make a Creole chicken dish from his restaurant back in New Orleans. The dish paid homage to his mother, who passed away 15 years ago.

That prize money will come in handy for Charly. “Pay for that wedding!” he cheered. Charly proposed to his fiancee the day before he left for the “Top Chef” competition.

The Elimination Challenge reveal: It’s suppertime at The Harvey House in Madison!

After the celebration subsided, Kish went on to reveal this week’s Elimination Challenge.

“You have things like Friday fish fry, Saturday prime rib, Sunday broasted chicken ... I just learned about that,” said Kish, but she couldn’t get past “Saturday prime rib” before Dan excitedly blurted out the challenge theme.

“Supper club!” he exclaimed. Oh, he was waiting for this one, and the producers knew it. Dan — and his happy little dance — got a lot of close-up shots as Kish explained just what in the world a supper club is to the nine contestants who don’t live in Wisconsin.

“It’s one of Wisconsin’s most beloved traditions,” Kish said.

Carrying on the tradition today are Joe and Shaina Papach, who own Madison’s Harvey House restaurant, a modern take on the classic Wisconsin supper club, where this week’s challenge would take place.

It was another team challenge, where each group of five would serve 40 dinner guests and eight judges separate courses representing supper club staples: the relish tray, a fish dish, a chicken dish, a beef dish and dessert.

After drawing knives, the green team included Manny, Danny, Amanda, Laura and Charly. On the purple team were Savannah, Kévin, Michelle, Dan and Rasika.

Everyone was invited to dine at The Harvey House after to draw inspiration for their supper club courses.

As a Wisconsinite, watching the chefs feast on supper club fare was adorable. They clinked old fashioneds, their eyes bulged at a massive chicken schnitzel and everyone was oohing and aahing over the minty-green grasshopper pie.

Laura was curious about the creamy cocktail she was sipping.

“How do you call that drink?” she asked.

“It’s a brandy Alexander,” the Papaches said.

Consider Laura inspired.

Dan was inspired, too. He claimed the relish tray course right away. “It’s the one I have the most memories of,” he said, adding that his family would make a Christmastime chopped liver they dubbed “Jacobs family catnip.”

“We’d box each other out trying to get at the chicken livers,” he said.

RELATED: 14 of Wisconsin's best supper clubs, according to readers

Grocery gripes: Things got heated at Whole Foods

After dinner, the teams headed to Whole Foods, where they had $1,000 and 30 minutes to shop for ingredients. At $200 per course to serve almost 50 people, that’s one of the tightest budgets we’ve seen on the show so far.

And that was the source of this week’s drama.

While shopping, some chefs scrimped by choosing inexpensive products and sharing ingredients with one another. That helped the purple team easily come in under budget, but on the green team, Laura’s multitude of dessert ingredients like milk and alcohol pushed their bill way over the $1,000 limit. Some of the chefs put ingredients back while Laura wouldn’t budge. And poor Danny was left with around just $75 to make his relish tray course.

Is Laura becoming the de facto villain this season? Two weeks ago, things got heated between her and Dan when he slipped in liquid she spilled in the Top Chef kitchen, and earlier that day, he rubbed her the wrong way by being choosy with the recipe card she selected for the Quickfire Challenge.

His “Midwest nice” might be strained when it comes to Laura, and the other contestants didn’t seem too thrilled with her, either.

The Elimination Challenge: Supper club standouts and stinkers

The green team had to set aside their differences in the Harvey House kitchen, where they were first to serve the judges and a dining room full of guests (including the Journal Sentinel’s Hannah Kirby, who I spotted a couple times during dinner!).

At the judges' table was host Kish, perennial judges Tom Colicchio and Gail Simmons, and guest judges Bell, the Papaches, Miller and his L’Etoile pastry-chef wife, Kristine.

They loved Amanda’s hot chicken dish, which was juicy and nicely fried. “Technically, she did everything right,” Colicchio said.

But they weren’t so kind to Charly, who attempted a fish dish with Haitian pikliz relish to honor his roots as he did when he won the Quickfire Challenge. Back in Episode 2 at the Historic Miller Caves, he served an undercooked mackerel dish to guest judge Kyle Knall of Milwaukee’s Birch restaurant.

“Last time, the fish was undercooked, but that’s not gonna happen this time,” Charly said.

I’ll give it to him: He was right. The judges said his trout was severely overcooked and the pikliz was under-seasoned.

Laura’s pricey tres leches cake with a chocolate brandy sidecar was a fun idea, the judges said, but the two didn’t complement each other.

Overall, it seemed like the green team struggled with the disproportionate ingredients across the courses. “I would have graciously loved a little bit more, but I made it work,” Danny said when the judges asked about the $1,000 limit.

But the purple team started hot with Dan’s relish tray, comprised of chicken liver mousse, steak tartare, crudités in “soil” and fried seed toast.

“He hit the nail on the head,” Joe Papach said.

And his chicken liver mousse was a showstopper. Simmons actually stuck her finger in it to enjoy some more after running out of toast.

But when Kévin’s roasted beef tenderloin came out, the judges had to gather themselves.

“It’s still got a name,” joked Bell of the “way undercooked” beef.

The rest of the team fared better. Savannah’s chicken tonkatsu was “a nice little dish,” according to Colicchio. Rasika, who had immunity, may have made an overly salty fish dish, but the peanut-jaggery dip it was served with was tasty. And Michelle’s coconut bread pudding stood out as a classic supper club dessert — even if most of the judges would’ve liked a bit more of its pineapple cream sauce.

Who won immunity on “Top Chef: Wisconsin” Episode 5?

When teams were called to the judges' table, Kish revealed that the purple team was the top-performing team of the day.

The top three chefs this week were Savannah, Michelle and Dan. But only one could win immunity.

And it's the moment Milwaukee’s been waiting for: The win went to our hometown chef, Dan.

The judges continued to rave about his relish tray.

“This is one dish I thought was executed from start to finish flawlessly,” Colicchio said.

“I truly loved it,” Simmons added. “I thought every component, as complex and complicated as it might have been to make, felt really clean and classic.”

It’s Dan's first win of the season, and what a fitting challenge to win for the Wisconsin-based chef with childhood memories of visiting supper clubs on family road trips.

His confidence showed throughout the episode and he rode it all the way to earning immunity.

“Even though I have physical limitations, my brain is sharp as a pencil,” he said. “I know how to put flavors together and it just reaffirms the fact that I belong here.”

Congratulations, Dan! With immunity in next week’s Elimination Challenge, we know for sure he’s headed to Week 7, at least.

Who went home on ‘Top Chef: Wisconsin’ Episode 5?

But there would be another chef that wouldn’t make it that far.

The bottom three dishes this week were Charly’s overcooked fish, Manny’s practically mooing beef and Laura’s incongruous dessert.

What’s more, Laura got an earful from the judges for monopolizing the team’s budget.

“Laura, if you have a tight budget, why do you try to do two things?” Colicchio asked. “Do one thing right. Don’t do two things OK.”

But even after that scolding, Charly was the one who was asked to pack his knives and go.

He was disappointed he overthought his dish with Haitian flair, but was proud of the work he’d done to that point.

“I don’t really like to live with regrets,” he said, smiling. “I always want to make sure my dish is always representative of me, where I come from, my culture, my cuisine, and I just did that in every dish, and that makes me really happy.

“And I'm going to kick ass on Last Chance Kitchen, so I gotta be ready for that.”

Speaking of Last Chance Kitchen, tonight is, well, the last chance for the chefs to fight their way back to the regular competition.

Last week, surprise 16th cheftestant, Soo, battled with both Alisha and Kaleena, ultimately knocking Alisha out of the game while Kaleena’s second-place dish kept her afloat.

Soo, Kaleena and Charly will cook in a two-part Last Chance Kitchen face-off, with the winner joining the remaining nine contestants in regular “Top Chef” competition next week.

What’s on the table next week? The preview keeps things shrouded in secrecy. I honestly can’t tell where the Elimination Challenge is set, but the theme is “chaos,” so buckle up for a wild night, viewers.

How to watch 'Top Chef: Wisconsin': TV channel, streaming

Viewers can watch live on Bravo on Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. or stream the next day on Peacock, BravoTV.com or the Bravo app.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: ‘Top Chef: Wisconsin’ Episode 5 recap: Supper club showdown in Madison